A Tale of Love and Ice
by FrozenBananaPanda
Summary: When a cursed and frozen man finds his way to Arendelle, the sisters find themselves having to choose between their duties to each other, Arendelle, and helping a man in need.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

A cool autumn breeze swept off the ocean into the recuperating kingdom of Arendelle. A hooded stranger walked off a gangplank on to the docks. People stared if he didn't wear the hood. As he stepped off, he slowly raised his head to look towards the castle. This was his last chance. If this didn't work, he will have failed his mission. The stranger's stiff legs started towards the castle, with the constant thud of his boots on the cobblestones to accompany them to the end.

"Can we go work on our ice fort now? It's gonna melt by time we get out there." Anna had been pestering her sister for the past half hour to take a break from work so they could go work on an ice fortress they were building.

Elsa gave a tired chuckle. "It can't melt silly. It'll stay there until I'm done going over all these." Anna huffed and flopped back down on the couch in the study. At the age of twenty-one Anna's love of playing with her sister in the snow still hadn't diminished. One of their favorite things to do together now whenever Elsa had time, which was less these days, was to build ice fortresses. The fortresses had started as quite small and crude constructions first made of snow, since they used their hands to build them. Over time and with practice though, they had become larger and more intricate and were now made of ice that they sculpted. For the ones they wanted to save, they had a spot on the North Mountain close to Elsa's ice palace where Elsa would recreate them.

Thinking of the dwindling time she had to build ice forts made Elsa look resentfully at the seemingly endless stack of papers she had to go over. After the Great Thaw, there had been a time of peace in Arendelle, in which Elsa had reappointed most of the council to help establish ties with other countries. Arendelle had needed help standing up again after so many years in isolation. Everything had gone well. Arendelle now had agreements of peace and trade routes set up with several kingdoms, some of which had offered support to invade the Southern Isles. Elsa and the King of the Southern Iles however, had already come to terms of peace; both agreeing that the crime of assassination fell solely on Prince Hans, not the entire Southern Iles. Elsa had been encouraged that several kingdoms saw potential in her reign of Arendelle. Not only did positive official business take place during the year of peace, but some family business had also transpired. After Kristoff had proved he wasn't a member of Clan Jerkface like Hans and had gotten to know Elsa, Anna and Kristoff did indeed get married. And Elsa thought planning Anna's birthday had been stressful.

The peace, however, did not last forever. After about a year of smooth restoration, the peace was broken by an attack from Weselton. It had come unexpectedly but did not surprise anyone once they realized who had attacked them. It had been a short war thankfully, due to the help of some other kingdoms who had been cheated by Weselton and wanted justice. Still, it had been disheartening to everyone to receive an attack so soon after crowning a new leader. Elsa had been afraid of going into a war so soon with so little experience and it had apparently shown in the first few speeches she had given. Many people doubted Elsa could pull Arendelle through and some families left. This had done nothing to raise Elsa's or anyone else's spirits. Through many pep talks from Anna, however, and the support of the other kingdoms, Elsa ended the war and had the families retuning with their heads hung in shame. After the war, extra trade agreements had been proposed by the supporting kingdoms to help resupply one another, and were what the pile of papers now stacked on Elsa's desk were.

Elsa's expression darkened at the thought of the war. There had not been very many deaths in Arendelle, but that had been at the cost of a personal moral sacrifice. The hardest part of the war, for at least the royal family, was when Elsa and the council had decided that sending snowmen out on the battle field would be the best strategy and save more lives. It had been one of the few times that Anna and Elsa had had a real fight. Anna had thrown a book at Elsa when she had told her the decision. It had been a long and tiring fight that neither had come out of it in good spirits. The decision didn't change though, and Elsa had sent an army of snowmen to fight for Arendelle. Almost worst was when the survivors had to be melted, for they would have been dangerous to keep around.

Elsa sighed. She needed to step away from these memories. She got up and started to pace the study. Anna looked up and smirked as she watched.

"It works doesn't it?" she bragged. Elsa rolled her eyes.

"You didn't even mean to come up with it." A few weeks earlier, Anna had insisted that Elsa at least let herself have a long enough break to walk around the room twice. Elsa had argued and, in hindsight, probably lost more time arguing than if she had just done what Anna asked. To add insult to injury, it had helped Elsa recollect her thoughts and given her a minute to breathe. She had used the trick several times since and Anna had held it against her ever after.

When Elsa sat back down, she looked at the stack of papers and decided she'd had enough depressing flashbacks for that day. "Fine," she reluctantly resigned. Anna squealed with delight forgetting to be arrogant.

"I'll go get my stuff! Meet you out there!" She dashed out of the study. Elsa chuckled again. Nor had Anna's energy level diminished at all.

Anna was already working on the fort when Elsa arrived at the fjord. Elsa had created a peninsula of ice on the fjord behind the castle for them to make their forts. This fort was close to complete and they were adding finishing details now. Anna, due to her joy in making these forts, had taken an interest in architecture. She had taken such an interest in it, that she had taken a course in it and was now working with other architects to design some new additions to the castle and in Arendelle. Who knew? Her previous teachers certainly hadn't predicted it.

They drew the plans for the forts first now, so they could more easily see what they were building and Elsa could create the starting block in the right shape and size. This one was two stories high, the second story being a balcony that looked down onto the first and had a dome roof.

"Oops!" An ice scraper fell from above making Elsa look up. Anna was leaning over the railing where she had been carving out diamond patterns in the rails. "Sorry, could you hand that back?" Elsa sent the scraper back up on an icy wind. "You're getting better at moving things without blowing everything away," Anna remarked as she got back to work.

"You still need to work on not dropping things." Elsa smiled as she turned to a pillar in the wall and started experimenting with different snowflake patterns.

"Hey, at least I didn't drop the whole bag of tools this time!" Anna reminded her. Elsa laughed remembering the look on Kristoff's face when the bag of tools had almost landed on him and Sven who had come to see their progress.

"Where is Kristoff?"

"He's with his ice harvesters getting one more big load of ice before it gets to cold." Anna, Kristoff, and Elsa had decided to keep the ice harvesting going even after revealing Elsa's power to make ice so the ice harvesters would still have a job. And to be honest, Elsa didn't really want to be making ice cubes all day on top of going through endless piles of paper work.

The girls were still working on their fortress into the evening, when a servant came rushing down the hill.

"Your majesty," he gasped "someone is at the gates. He wishes an audience with you." The servant bent over trying to catch his breath.

"What's the hurry? Is something wrong?" Elsa asked in confusion. The servant stood up and Elsa caught him glance at her hands.

"It's complicated. You'll have to see for yourself." Anna and Elsa looked at each other, each face a reflection of the other's confusion. Nevertheless, they followed the servant back up the hill and into the courtyard. When they arrived at the gates, a few guards stood by a hooded figure.

"What's the matter gentlemen? Is this man a criminal?" Elsa addressed the guards standing by the hooded stranger. The man didn't look like he was trying to go anywhere.

"No, your majesty. Well, we don't know actually," one of the guards replied in uncertainty. Elsa turned her attention to the man in question.

"You requested my audience?" The man said nothing, but started to lower his hood. The sisters gasped. Under the hood was hair as white as snow and a face deathly pale. The eyes like shards of fractured ice stared into Elsa's.

The stranger then spoke in a voice devoid of all emotion, "I'm freezing. Can you help?"


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Elsa's heart felt like it stopped for a moment. _Did I freeze this man during the war? Is he going to freeze like Anna did?_ "D-did I –"

"No." The man interrupted her as if he had read her mind. Elsa let out a small breath of relief. After all this time, she still had horrific images of Anna's face in her mind, lifeless, and frozen.

Anna, who looked like she'd seen a ghost, asked, "Who did freeze you then?" Elsa was not surprised however, that Anna had been able to read her mind. The man's face, which had still been unmoved and focused on Elsa, slowly turned towards Anna with a face like stone.

"Long story," he whispered. His mouth barely moved while he talked. His jaw moved just enough so he could mumble the words. He didn't seem to want to say anything he didn't need to. Elsa gave Anna a quizzical glance. If this man had been frozen like Anna had been, Anna would know how to make it better for the moment.

Anna saw her sister's expression and knew what she was asking. A smile flickered across Anna's mouth. She liked that her sister trusted her to know things she didn't. "Get him by a fire. We'll ask him some questions once he's warmed up a bit." The servant who had escorted them to the gates ran inside to start a fire. "Can you walk?" Anna remembered she'd had trouble walking during her final stages of freezing. She'd only seen her hands but this guy looked like he was going to turn into a popsicle any minute.

"Slowly," he replied in a deadpan tone. He started to move stiffly towards the castle. After a few steps that only got him about two feet closer, Elsa nodded to the guards and two of them lifted the man under each arm and started to carry him to the castle. Anna had to muffle a giggle at the sight of the stranger being carried. He looked like a puppy being carried by his parents. The sight was made even funnier by the stranger's expressionless face. Out of the corner of her eye, Anna saw a small smile on Elsa's lips and an amused glint in her eye.

After the guards lowered the man into an arm chair by the fire in the sitting room, the sisters sat in a couch opposite of the man.

"Can we have a name?" Elsa asked the stranger, whose eyes gradually trained themselves on hers. Elsa shifted in her seat. It was unnerving to have eyes that were so deep, yet so empty, stare so intensely into hers.

"Hendrik." Hendrik's hair seemed to glow white against the fire. Elsa studied him for a moment. He was actually in quite fine clothes, but they were messy and unkempt like he didn't care whether they were ruined or not. This irked Elsa. Why would he toss away such nice things so carelessly? His hair was messy too. It was short and looked like someone had tried to comb it but had given up because it was too stiff. The parts that stuck up looked like small icicles protruding from his head. Anna noticed this as well and had to muffle another giggle. The detail that really caught Elsa's eye was the pair thick leather gloves he wore. _Is it possible that he…?_ Elsa pushed that thought to the back of her mind. That wouldn't matter if he was dying.

"Well Hendrik, can you tell us how you came to be in this state and where you're from?" Elsa watched for any sighs of fear or guilt in Hendrik's face but could find none. If this man was a criminal, he hid it well.

"Snow spirit. Flourensburg." He was still as a statue as he spoke with his gaze still trained on Elsa.

"Flourensburg?" Elsa tried to picture Flourensburg on a map.

"Snow spirit?" Anna asked in surprise at the same time.

Hendrik mumbled, "Yes." Anna's expression sunk into what clearly read _Thank you for that incredibly useless and repetitive information Captain Obvious._

"Would you care to elaborate on that at all?" Anna asked sarcastically. Elsa shot her a swift glare. Anna retorted with a look of annoyance towards Hendrik. They were going to be there for hours at this rate.

"No," Hendrik replied, his eyes shifting to Anna's. It was Anna's turn to squirm under his stare.

Elsa looked taken aback. "No? Why not?" Her brow furrowed as she crossed her arms. How were they supposed to help this man if they didn't know what was wrong with him? Hendrik shifted in his seat to pull something out of his pocket. It was a folded piece of paper. He handed it to Elsa.

"What's this? An apology for being so annoying?" Anna asked skeptically. This guy was really starting to annoy her.

"Anna!" Elsa snapped. She couldn't believe how rude Anna could be to people she didn't know sometimes. Then again, with what Hans had tried to do to her, Elsa supposed she had a reason for doing so. Still, not everyone was Hans. Elsa took a small breath to recompose herself. "I apologize for my sister. She doesn't mean any offense." Elsa gave Anna a warning look to not say anything else. _We will talk about this later,_ she seemed to say.

Anna glowered at her. _You're not Mama. Quit acting like you are._ This earned Anna another glare. Over the years they'd been back together, Anna and Elsa had learned to read each other so well that they were able to have silent conversations like this. What seemed like minute to them when they were having these silent discussions, actually only took a moment in the eyes of everyone else.

Elsa turned her attention back to the piece of paper in her hands. She unfolded it and saw it was a page Hendrik had written explaining his circumstances. It was in neat handwriting except in places where a word was scribbled out and replaced by a new one above.

The letter read: My name in Hendrik. I'm freezing to death and will probably die in a year. "Oh. Well then you're in any immediate danger. Can we finish questioning him later?" Anna requested. She was reading the letter over Elsa's shoulder.

"No." Elsa looked back at the letter. If I am showing this to you it's because I can barely move and need to easily explain to you why I need your help. Long ago, my brother and I accidently disturbed a snow spirit. As revenge, the snow spirit was going to cast an eternal winter over my kingdom, Flourensburg. My younger brother however, told the spirit to cast it on him instead. The spirit agreed to not cast it on Flourensburg, but cast the storm on me instead of my brother because it didn't want to give someone who had just disturbed her exactly what he wanted. She's a jerk like that. So now, I have an eternal storm inside of me that has been slowly freezing me that I need to get rid of before it kills me. I hope you are willing to help. It also has given me the power of ice. It's unpredictable. The only thing that helps so far is gloves. A more recent scrawl of words read, Queen of Arendale, you have ice powers. If you can't help, nobody can.

Elsa set the paper down. Her mind was a jumbled mass of excitement, fear, and wonder. He did have powers. He may only have them because of an angry snow spirit, but for the first time in her life, Elsa was looking at someone who might understand the fears and worries that came with such powers. Her present fear, however, was if she would be able to help Hendrik control his powers. She had gone through quite an ordeal before even beginning to master hers and wasn't sure how to teach someone how to master theirs. All of this because of a grumpy spirit. _Could I meet this spirit? Could it tell me where my powers came from?_ Elsa wondered. Where her powers came from had been a question she had wondered since before the isolation. She supposed this would have to come after they tried to save Hendrik.

"Well," Elsa started slowly. She looked at Anna and an understanding passed between them. They would need to talk this over before anything was decided. "A long term stay will have to be discussed, but a room will be prepared for you for at least tonight. Bernard, prepare a guest room," she told a waiting servant.

"Yes, your majesty. Would you like me to show Sir Hendrik to his room now?" Bernard asked before leaving. Elsa looked back at Hendrik.

"Do you need anything else to eat tonight?" she asked.

"No." Hendrik started to get up and Bernard came to his side to help him up and out of the room. Anna and Elsa stayed seated. Once the door shut, Elsa whipped around to face her sister.

"Anna, why do have to be so rude to new people? Not everybody is going to hurt you like Hans! Think about Kristoff!" Elsa fumed. She hated being unorderly around people unless it was Kristoff or Anna.

"I don't know! Because I always feel like they might be like Hans! I'm never going to trust anybody else again without knowing them! And don't use Kristoff as an excuse because we were in a life and death situation together! You can't prove your worth much more than that!" Anna was breathing heavily from shouting, and was glowering at Elsa.

Elsa's anger simmered down, worry and shame took hold of her face. "I'm sorry." It broke her heart to see again how much Hans had hurt her sister and Elsa yelling at her wasn't helping anything. Elsa wasn't sure Anna would ever be as trusting again. Maybe it was for the better though.

Anna let out one more heavy breath and seemed to come to her senses. "I'm sorry too. It isn't right of me to assume everyone I meet is going to be like Hans. It's just, whenever I meet someone, it reminds me of what happened the last time I trusted someone without knowing them first. It also kinda makes me embarrassed and ashamed, and it's not right to take that out on other people." Anna hung her head with a sigh. "We've had some pretty messed up stuff happen to us. It's a wonder how we came out as well as we did even with mistakes."

Elsa laughed half-heartedly. It was just like Anna, wonderful, positive Anna, to turn a dark subject around into something positive and almost happy. "Yes, I suppose some messed up stuff has happen." _And it all started with them._ Elsa didn't like to think about them. She had very conflicting feelings about them even after all this time. Elsa shook her head to clear away all of the depressing and messed up stuff. "So, what do we do with this stranger?"

"Well, we're not monsters, and it seems like you're the only chance left he has to live so I don't know what else to do but help him."

Elsa nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I'll have to talk to the council though." Perhaps if she could help thaw him, Hendrik could also take her to see this spirit. Then maybe she could get some answers about where her powers came from.

"We have to help him first, before you even think about seeing the spirit," Anna retorted crossing her arms. Elsa looked up in shock. Sometimes it's helpful for your sister to know what you're thinking, and then sometimes it's downright annoying.

Elsa blushed and quickly babbled out, "I wasn't thinking about any such thing. The thought hadn't even crossed my mind."

"Mmhm, okay." Elsa sighed in resignation and annoyance. Anna laughed and the two sisters went down to dining hall for dinner.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Hendrik awoke the next morning not knowing where he was. He had to think for a moment and let the gears start turning in his head again before he remembered. This happened to him sometimes and was never a pleasant feeling to wake up to. He slowly recalled the events from last night. In all likelihood, the sisters had probably decided to send him away. It didn't make sense for them to keep him around.

He stiffly got out of bed and clumsily dressed himself. He looked down at the comb on the dresser. He decided not to break it and headed out into the hall, hoping someone would show him the way to wherever the food was. He hadn't eaten for almost a day.

The sisters were already down in the dining hall again eating breakfast. Elsa was sitting quietly while Anna complained that Kristoff had already come and gone to get more ice without talking to her.

"Am I doing something wrong? Is he trying to avoid me? Maybe he decided I'm too talkative or something and decided he doesn't love me anymore. What have I done?" Anna let her head fall on the table with a thunk, narrowly missing her plate of eggs.

"Anna, don't hurt yourself. I'm pretty sure Kristoff wouldn't have married you if he minded that you were talkative. I'm sure he just wants to harvest as much ice as possible before winter. It's surprisingly warm today and he just saw a good opportunity to go harvesting again," Elsa tried to assure her sister. Anna didn't usually get up this early and that was quite evident in her overly dramatic behavior. Elsa had insisted that Anna get up at the same time as her every Tuesday, hoping this would cure her habit of sleeping in until almost noon. So far it was doing nothing for Anna, but did provide Elsa with a great deal of entertainment on Tuesday mornings.

Anna quickly woke up though and looked up when Hendrik heavily sat down in the chair opposite of her. She had to put her head back on the table for a moment to hide her laughter. Once she had suppressed her laughter enough to hold it in, she leaned over to Elsa and whispered, "His bed head is worse than mine!"

Elsa almost choked on the sip of tea she had just taken, trying to not laugh and to not spit it across the table. After she had stop coughing she whispered to Anna, "You couldn't have waited to tell me that after I swallowed?" Both of the sisters giggled until they noticed Hendrik looking at them. Anna suddenly became very interested in her spoon and Elsa took a hasty sip of her tea, which only led to another coughing fit.

A servant brought Hendrik a plate of eggs, sausage, and biscuits. Hendrik picked up his fork and slowing began shoveling eggs into his mouth. Most of the forkfuls dropped back onto the plate before they ever reached his mouth. Anna had to excuse herself from the table before she burst out laughing again. Elsa luckily had enough training as queen to hold in her laughter. Her eyes rose from Hendrik's sloppy eating to his eyes. As she looked at them more closely, she noticed they had snowflakes in them. Small, intricate snowflakes, a light frost blue that lay across his pupils and irises. _Beautiful,_ Elsa thought. Then the snowflake covered eyes looked up at her. Elsa quickly became interested in her fork. Not the spoon so much, no that was quite dull, but the fork, yes, very interesting.

"Helping?" Elsa looked up from her fascinating fork to Hendrik who had just spoken.

"Help with what?" Hendrik didn't say anything. Elsa then realized, "Oh! Yes, we are going to help you unless the council has any large objections. For now, we've decided that you'll stay here until you're fixed, unless you have somewhere close by where you were planning to stay." Hendrik slightly shook his head. "Then you'll be staying here while we're helping you."

"Okay." Hendrik went back to gnawing on his biscuit. The answer had not been the one he had expected, but he now accepted it as a simple fact.

Elsa narrowed her eyes. _Maybe we should have sent him away. He obviously doesn't care whether we help him or not._ Anna came back into the room calmer than when she had left.

"So, you want to go work on our fort?" she asked with a hopeful gleam in her eyes.

"Anna, you know I can't. Kai set up a council meeting about Hendrik that's about to start, and I still have to finish going over all of those agreements."

Anna sighed. "Just thought I'd check since Kristoff's still gone." She rested her check on her fist in a dejected way that made Elsa feel guilty. She hated it when Anna did that.

"Haven't you started up your architect group again anyways?"

"Naw, not yet. Everyone's focusing on their own homes and family right now because of the war. Some of their homes were damaged when the armies broke through the walls."

Elsa silently cursed herself for not knowing that. She was the queen! She should know about these things. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that. Well, since you're free anyways, why don't you show Hendrik around till I'm done? Is that okay Hendrik?" Hendrik looked up with a piece of sausage hanging from his mouth and nodded. "Excellent. We'll work on our fort later, I promise."

"Don't promise. You might not be able to," Anna said glumly. Elsa closed her eyes in frustration. She wondered if Anna realized how much she wished she could spend more time with her.

"Fine then, I'll _try_ to work on it later. Now go show Hendrik around." She walked out to head to the meeting.

A nna looked back at Hendrik who was looking at his plate like he expected more food to magically appear. Anna rubbed her face. _This is going to be fun_. "Come on. Let's go show you around the grounds."

It was not fun. Hendrik walked excruciatingly slow, and if she wasn't careful, Anna would be twenty feet in front of him without noticing. The art gallery was the worst. What was normally one of her favorite rooms in the castle, turned into a torture chamber as she waited for Hendrik to slowly make his way around the room and inspect _every_ piece of art.

Anna was lying on her back on a bench, plotting revenge on Elsa, when she heard a grunt of pain. She looked up to see Hendrik slumped against a wall, a circle of frost surrounding him.

"Hendrik!" she exclaimed as she rushed over to him. "What happened?"

"Storm," he winced. "Happens sometimes." His leather gloves were stiff and covered in frost. Anna imagined that if he hadn't been wearing them, there would have been a much bigger ice blast.

"What do we do?" she asked, all boredom washed away.

"Wait. It passes." Hendrik's normally blank expression now twisted with pain. Anna looked around not sure whether to listen to him or get help. She decided to wait and after a minute, Hendrik's face was less pained, and the circle of frost was a puddle on the floor.

"Does that happen often?" Anna asked. Hendrik sat for a moment in silence, thinking. He probably should have kept track of the episodes, but hadn't thought to.

"Unpredictable. More now," he decided. Anna pondered this for a moment, trying to decipher Hendrik's one word answers.

"So, they're random, but they've been happening more frequently?" Hendrik nodded. He seemed to be better now with his face back in its usual expressionless state. "Do we need to do something now? Or are you okay?"

Hendrik shook his head. "Keep going." Anna helped him up and he started walking like nothing had happed, not even acknowledging Anna's assistance.

"Thanks Anna, for being concerned about my life. Oh, no problem Hendrik, I do that all the time," Anna muttered bitterly under her breath and stopped by the back gate, waiting for Hendrik to catch up.

H e was almost to the gate when a little voice behind them said, "Hi, I'm Olaf, and I like warm hugs!"

Elsa took a deep breath, steeling herself for the worst as she walked up to the council room door. As she had walked down to the council room, Elsa realized her decision to help Hendrik may have been a bit hasty. Even if it ended up being the right decision, the council would still give her a hard time for acting so reckless. Elsa took one more breath as she opened the council room door.

Inside, sat ten council members, three of them women, the rest men. They sat at a long oval table with a small throne on one end of the room. Elsa came in and sat on the throne. Seven of the council members were ones Elsa had elected when she took the throne and the other three were ones that had been councilors for her father. Even though Elsa did not agree with how her father had run Arendale, the council members she had kept, were the ones responsible for keeping Arendale from complete destruction in the three years between her parents' death and her coronation. She felt it wouldn't be right to replace them after what they did for Arendale.

The head of the council, Minister Magnus, stood up to speak. "You're Majesty," he droned with a bow, "we received your note from Kai, and do indeed have some things to discuss if we may." Elsa nodded and Magnus went on. "First, however, we would like to hear your thoughts first," he drawled. Elsa gripped the hand rests. Hearing Magnus' voice always put her on edge.

"What would you like to know? As I informed you in my note, a man who goes by Hendrik appeared yesterday, almost frozen. As a reasonable human being, I think it would not be right to send him away if I can help."

"Mhm," the Minister hummed. Elsa clenched her teeth. If Magnus hadn't been the one most responsible for keeping Arendale running, she would most likely have replaced him just to get rid of the mind numbing drone of his voice. "Well, be that as it may, the council does have some concerns."

 _Of course they do,_ thought Elsa.

"First and foremost, I believe the whole council agrees that it was hasty and irresponsible for you to agree to such a big decision without consulting the council first."

 _Called it._ Elsa replied, "Perhaps it was, but I had good reasons and it was a question that needed to be answered right then."

Magnus tapped the tip of his feather pen to his chin and sighed. "My Queen, could the man not have survived till we discussed this?"

"I wasn't one hundred percent sure he would and more so I thought he might leave if I didn't give him an answer quickly."

"Why would he leave if he had the hope you might help?"

Elsa took a small breath and let it out slowly. They were wasting time arguing about something that couldn't even be reversed. "If you were dying, would you want to wait around while people discussed whether they would help you or not instead of finding a more definite source?" Magnus opened his mouth to speak again but Elsa cut him off. "But really Minister, this is not the point of this meeting. I would like to move on if you're finished." They looked at each other for a moment in a silent standoff. The minister grumbled and agreed to move on.

"So then, as I said, some of us do have objections." Elsa settled herself more comfortably into the throne. This was going to be a long discussion. "There is a portion of us who fear that if we let this man stay to be healed by you, in whatever way you have planned to, you will compromise your duties to Arendale for the sake of this stranger."

"I would never do any such thing. As queen my first priority is Arendale," Elsa stated, her brow furrowing.

"Yes, my Queen, but you have been known to be quite sympathetic towards others and have put your own personal needs before Arendale's before. Arendale cannot afford their ruler to fall behind on her duties right now in its time of restoration."

"I have readily agreed that I made a mistake at my coronation but I thought that was in the past now," Elsa retorted, furious that Magnus was bringing up her failure during the Great Freeze even though it had already been discussed and forgiven.

Another councilor to Elsa's right stood up and said, "If I may, I would like to remind you my Queen, that like Magnus said, only a portion of us agree with this." He was one of the new councilors, but Elsa remembered his name to be Andar. "There are some of us that agree with your decision." Elsa nodded her thanks to him.

"So that I can see what the overall council thinks, can I please see a show of hands for those who do agree with this decision?" Five of the councilors raised their hands, consisting of Andar, another male councilor, and the three women. Elsa sighed. Why couldn't they ever just all agree with what she said? "Very well, please explain again why this decision troubles you. No some else besides you this time Minister." Magnus sat down with another grumble as a counselor named Gudrek stood up.

"You're Majesty, before I begin I would just like to say that all we say and do in this meeting is for the benefit of the kingdom, nothing more, nothing less. Now, to summarize, our concern is that if you take in this man and start devoting time to his wellbeing, you will be less focused on repairing the kingdom. Arendale is still in a state of disarray. It is mending smoothly right now, but if you turn attention away from it, it may not come out of such a state."

Elsa thought for a moment. She was already struggling with trying to find time to spend with Anna. How could she also find time to help Hendrik? "I see your point councilor, but the fact still remains that he could very well die if I don't try to help him."

Theodore, another councilor, stood up to speak. "You're Majesty, the sacrifice of one life for the good of many is trivial."

"It won't be trivial to his family if he's got one!" One of the women, Frieda, retaliated.

Magnus now spoke up and replied, "Well then councilor, one family for the good of many." All of the councilors were standing now and the tension in the air was stifling. The room was on the verge of a chaotic shouting match.

Another one of the female councilors named Bertha had the bravery to speak. "Is that how you treat these people's lives Minister? Like a bunch of facts and figures? Is that how you think of the men that died for Arendale to? Do you think those families would accept it if you went up to them and said, 'Oh sorry for your lose. That's just how the equation came out'?"

"Councilor, I'm not saying that it's perfect, but imagine how many other people would have died. Just imagine that for a moment. Hmm. Doesn't seem so appalling now does it?"

Elsa spoke up and said, "Minister have you read the poem 'For Whom the Bell Tolls'?"

"I can't say I have."

"'No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved with mankind.' Those are lines from the poem. They are words I hold to be true especially in an instance such as this."

Magnus looked upon the five councilors who opposed him and said "I doubt they have any solid knowledge to back up their claims. They're mostly new councilors with no experience or knowledge of these matters."

Elsa interjected before everyone could start yelling. "Minister, no matter how right you think your argument is, you will stop provoking the other side! There will be no foul play at this meeting. Now sit down. Everyone." Everyone slowly sat back down still glaring at each other.

"I apologize for my rudeness you're Majesty. I was only trying to do my job and convince you to do what's right for Arendale." Magnus apologized none too convincingly.

"You mean try to convince me to do what you believe to be best for Arendale."

"I have facts."

"Arendale's inhabitants aren't machines," snapped back an opposing councilor.

"Enough," Elsa commanded. "I have heard both arguments and both have value; however, I am queen and I have the final say. My opinion has not changed. I will accept the responsibility of helping this man and keeping Arendale on track. Does everyone understand me?"

Everyone nodded their heads except Magnus who softly asked, "Your father would have wanted it my way Elsa. You know that don't you girl?"

Elsa's annoyance tipped over into furry as she shot out of the throne. "Minister you will address me as queen! And I don't care what my father would have done! I am the ruler of Arendale now and I will choose to do what _I_ think is right, not what he would have done! I have given my final answer. This meeting is over, council dismissed." She swept out of the room in a stormy rage. A chilled breeze blew through the room as the door slammed shut.

Elsa marched down the hall until she turned a corner and almost ran into a guard.

"You're Majesty!"

"What now?" Elsa grumbled.

"Something happened to our guest. This way!" Baffled, Elsa followed the guard down the hall until the he stopped and pointed. There lay Hendrik on the ground surrounded by a ring of ice spikes with Anna and Olaf looking over him.

"What happened?" Elsa exclaimed. Anna looked at Elsa with a mixture of guilt and fear.

"I think Olaf might of just scared him to death."


End file.
